O ' 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
appetite, lameness in the limbs attended with a 
cough, as the lungs are the seat of the disease, and 
after death are covered^ with black spots. Hogs 
that are confined in small pens, or a large num¬ 
ber together, are most liable to the disease. I have 
never known an instance of it where hogs had 
plenty of room, and free access to a brook or riv¬ 
er of clear running water. William Lee. 
Fairfield Co ., Ct. 
---- 
On Praising Pork and its Use as Food. 
We have a lengthy essay on this subject from 
Mr. J. W. Redfield, but have not room to give it 
entire, and therefore present an epitome : 
The opinion is expressed that hocrs are 
generally diseased ; not acutely, but subject to 
chronic disorders which are only ended by the 
knife of the butcher. Tuberculated and ulcerated 
livers and lungs, and congested and enlarged 
lymphatic glands are found in the semi-wild hogs 
which fatten in the forests of the West and South, 
as well as in those which are confined in a space 
just large enough to eat, stand, and sleep in, and 
compelled to breathe the exhalations of concen¬ 
trated manures which it is their business to com¬ 
post and manufacture. The hog is naturally of 
scrofulous constitution, and his diseased meat 
being eaten, is brought into close contact and in¬ 
timate conjunction with fluids and solids of the 
human body, and thus imparts scrofula, showing 
itself in obstructions, indurations, enlargements, 
tumors, tubercles, eruptions, ulcers and cancers. 
Mr. Redfield, thinks the tendency of the swine 
to scrofula may be accounted for thus : Life in 
warm-blooded animals is sustained by a supply ot 
heat-producing material taken as food, such as 
oil, lard, fat, or its equivalent in various forms. 
When more such food is taken than is necessary 
to supply the immediate wants oftlie system, the 
surplus is stored in the cellular membrane in 
different parts of the body, ready to be used when 
needed to make up any deficiency of food. The 
fat, thus deposited, in time becomes rancid, and 
is then absorbed into the circulation to make room 
for fresh deposites, and if there is already sup¬ 
plied to the lungs a sufficient amount of matter 
through the food to keep up the necessary com¬ 
bustion, this fatty substance remains in the blood 
unpurified, and gives rise to scrofulous disease in 
various forms. The hog is particularly liable to 
this difficulty, because his food is mostly starchy, 
saccharine, and oily, rather than nitrogenous ; 
fat-making rather than flesh-making. Again, his 
habits and mode of life tend to impede the vigor¬ 
ous exercise of the lungs whose office it is to 
purify the blood. He lives frequently in a very 
impure atmosphere, and also by almost continual 
rooting, excludes a free supply of air from the 
lungs His filthy habits also impede the egress of 
offensive secretions from the skin, and increase 
a tendency to lymphatic and phlegmatic diseases. 
Mr. R. thinks that these peculiarities of swine 
were intended to subserve the purpose of rapid 
propagation of the species ; for which swine are 
remarkable. During the process of gestation and 
nursing, the excess of food goes for the growth of 
the young, instead of being deposited in the form 
of fat, thus preventing the difficulties already re¬ 
ferred to. He says it has been observed that 
scrofulous and consumptive persons enjoy appa¬ 
rently improved health during pregnancy from this 
fact. Hence he concludes that the proper way 
to prevent the supposed deleterious effects of 
eating pork, is to kill the young porkers for the 
table before they arrive at the age when their food 
adds to their fat instead of increasing the gener¬ 
al growth. He thinks the superabundant food of 
one sow, in the shape of eight or ten pigs, is great¬ 
er in quantity and better in quality, than in the 
form of that one sow fatted and overgrown ; and 
hence more profitable. 
He advises to commence with one sow of the 
finest breed, pregnant with her first litter, which 
will be at the time of the commencement of ex¬ 
cessive nutrition ; to save all the sow pigs and one 
boar for breeders, and to make roasters of the 
rest, before the males are old enough to have a 
rank taste, thus avoiding castration ; and to con¬ 
tinue thus, until the herd is sufficiently large. 
In conclusion Mr. R., after adverting to the 
superiority of young porkers to the overgrown 
animals in an artistic point of view, (the little fe! 
lows being not without a certain style of beauty) 
concludes with the opinion, that the large fatten¬ 
ed animal is fit only for stearine candles and 
lard oil, and that it is the little pig, free from dis¬ 
ease, fat, fair, rich, tender, and delicate, that is 
fit to be eaten. 
. - ^ - »-«- - - 
Tim Bunker on Raising Boys. 
Mr. Editor. 
As I was going down by the Horse-Pond lot, 
this morning, the same one that I drained last 
year, I found Seth Twiggs’ horse. Jolham Spar- 
rowgrass’ cows, and Deacon Smith’s flock of 
sheep turned into my corn and oats. It looked 
as if they had been in the better part of the night; 
for the corn was pretty much all nipped off, or 
torn up by the-roots, and the oats were badly 
trampled. The corn crop is of course ruined as 
it is now too late to plant over. It so happened 
that I had fixed one of the gate posts yesterday 
and the dirt was all nicely smoothed off, and the 
enemy who had done this had left his foot prints 
by the gate way. I took the measure of the shoe 
print, and walked straight up to Jake Frink’s and 
inquired for his oldest boy Kier, a young fellow 
about eighteen, who is up to all manner of monk¬ 
ey shines, and has got a terrible bad name in 
Hookertown. Kier was called in, and it was 
found that the measure exactly fitted the shoes 
in which he stood, length and breadth of top and 
heel. 
Jake Frink was a good deal astonished, when 
he see that his boy was caught in such an un- 
neighborly trick, but I don’t know why he need to 
be, for he.has had no sort of control over his boys, 
and always let them choose their own company, 
and pursuits. Kier, has got a notion of drinking 
the last few years, staying all night at the tav¬ 
ern, driving fast horses, .unhinging gates, gird¬ 
ling young fruit trees, firing stacks, and turning 
cattle into corn fields. He seems to think it is 
very smart, to destroy property in this way, and 
to make himself a nuisance in the neighborhood 
generally. He is caught now, and must walk up 
to the captain’s office and settle. The next worst 
thing to a bad father, is a bad public opinion that 
submits to vice and rowdyism. I am Justice of 
the Peace, and if I was not, I am a neighbor to 
Jake Frink, and hound to help him keep his boys 
in their place. I have a very poor opinion of 
that rural cowardice, which gives up a civilized 
community to the depredations of a set of young 
Arabs, like Kier Frink. What is the use of hav¬ 
ing law, if you do not enforce it against the de¬ 
stroyers of property, and the disturbers of the 
peace 1 If the young chaps want to cut up, and 
have music, it is fair that they should pay the fid¬ 
dler. If they rob hen roosts, the hens should not 
be left to do all the squawking. It will do them 
good to look out of a roost, with iron grates to the 
windows. 
Now I hold, that a man is a poor farmer, as 
well as a bad citizen, that raises such a boy as 
Kier Frink. The farm exists for the sake of the 
family that works it, and its chief end is- Lo male 
smart, useful men and women. Your great crops, 
and fine stock all go for nothing, unless you get 
the blossom of the farm—man. What is an ap¬ 
ple tree good for, unless it raises apples ? The 
shade is no better than that of any other tree, and 
the fire-wood does not amount to much. So the 
farm is not worth much, unless it blossoms out 
into good nice housewives and useful upright 
men. 
It is a good deal of a knack to raise a first rate 
cow or steer, even after they are born right. 
There is many a full blood heifer, with first-rate 
milking qualities, spoiled by bad treatment. Keep 
her on bog hay Winters, and let her run in the 
road Summers, and I guess, she would never 
•amount to much. And you might have high 
grade Devons, with all the elements of splendid 
working cattle in them, that would bring three 
hundred dollars a yoke, and treat them so when 
they were calves and yearlings, that they would 
not bring a hundred. You might dwarf them or 
lame them, or injure their horns, or make them 
ugly and breachy by bad handling. An ox known 
to jump fences, or kick, or gore cattle, is very 
much depreciated in value. 
It is just so with the human stock, brought up 
on a farm. Almost every thing depends upon the 
bringing up —a great deal more than it does with 
the brutes, for the animal nature of man is only a 
small part of him, and his moral nature and hab¬ 
its are almost entirely shaped by those who 
have the care of him, wirile he is young. If this 
gets the right start, I have always noticed that it 
generally brings every thing else along right, with 
it. If a fruit tree gets to bearing when it is young, 
all the forces of the tree will run to fruit, and you 
will not be troubled with too much wood and fo¬ 
liage. And if a boy blossoms out into the virtues 
of industry, truthfulness, honesty, temperance, and 
purity, I think it is pretty certain, we shall have 
that kind of fruit, as long as he lives. 
Now to get this fruit early, we must prune both 
root and branch. The shoots that are running to 
wood, must be shortened in, and a spade must 
sometimes be thrust down upon the roots, and cut 
them off. This seems harsh treatment, but every 
fruit grower knows that it is necessary. So we 
must shorten in the boys, when they run wild, nip 
offthe blossom buds of vice, lying, stealing, swear¬ 
ing, drunkenness, and such like. There is an old 
article they used to do such things with, when I 
was a boy— called Solomon’s rod. The bark was 
very bitter, but wholesome, and it worked like a 
charm. I am afraid folks do not use it so much as 
they used to. At any rate Jake Frink has never 
used it at all. He was always scolding about the 
cruelty of whipping children, and if one of his ever 
got a little of the oil of birch in school, he was al¬ 
ways ready to find fault 1 x 1111 the teacher, and 
take the child’s part. The youngsters very soon 
came to believe, that their father had rather have 
them lie, and make disturbance, than to speak the 
truth, and behave well. His mode of bringing up 
boys has turned out upon society, that promising 
lad, Kier Frink, a vagabond and loafer, at the age 
of eighteen ! Solomon’s rod, with steel at the 
end of it, was never half so cruel as the mis¬ 
placed indulgence of-his father What sorrows 
are before the poor old man with such thorns in 
his pillow. I am glad to see,:that- you keep up 
your chats with the boys and girls. Keep them 
straight a few years longer, and we shall have a 
generation of farmers worth looking at. 
Yours to command, 
TiMOTHY^fetiKEpE, Esq. 
Hookertown, June 13, 1859. 
